Battle of Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg

Penn State Laureate Carol Reardon, the George Winfree Professor of American History at the University Park campus, will bring her Battle of Gettysburg campaign to Penn State New Kensington at noon on April 19 in the Conference Center. Reardon’s talk, "History versus Heritage: The View from Gettysburg," will look at the battle that changed the American Civil War through two sets of interpretive lenses — history and heritage. The lecture is free to the public.

Lincoln sought to make sense of the Battle of Gettysburg with his address, which succeeded in galvanizing the North's resolve to see the war through. Bill Blair, director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Center and professor of history at Penn State, puts these events in perspective and shows how the effects of this battle would resonate for years to come.

For three days in July 1863, thousands of Gettysburg civilians and tens of thousands of soldiers were caught up in a battle that left often conflicting data and anecdotes. This makes writing about the Battle of Gettysburg both a dream and a nightmare for Civil War historians, according to a Penn State researcher.